“I’ve got a wardrobe full of clothes but can’t find anything to wear!!”
This is the phrase that I hear most from my clients, and with 80% of us only wearing 20% of our wardrobe it’s not really surprising. You know the feeling, you go to the shops, buy a new item of clothing, get it home and have to squeeze it into your wardrobe, never to be seen again.
You wonder to yourself how on earth did it get to this stage, not only is the wardrobe in your bedroom full but also every other bit of wardrobe space and drawer in the house that hasn’t been used by another family member and you STILL don’t have anything to wear today.
Where do you start? You need to have a good old wardrobe weed, and here’s where to start.
Step One. Take out EVERYTHING that doesn’t fit you.
I mean everything. No keeping in something that you’re really close to fitting into (are you really??) Every morning that you go to your wardrobe and it’s full of clothes that don’t fit you anymore you are going to have that sinking feeling and think to yourself ‘if only I lost weight I’d have loads to wear, I’m starting my diet today’. What happens the next day? You go to your wardrobe and think ‘if only I lost some weight ………’ I think you get the idea.
This is such a negative way to start every day. How would it feel to open your wardrobe every day and whilst you may have less clothes hanging in there, you will be able to wear EVERY item of clothing in there if you want to. My clients say to me ‘but if I take everything that doesn’t fit me out then I’ll have nothing to wear’, I have to remind them that they can’t actually wear those clothes anyway, so they really aren’t losing anything.
Step Two. Take out everything that isn’t in your colour palette
One of the main reasons that clothes sit in our wardrobe unworn is because when we put them on they make us look tired, sallow, washed out or just fight against our natural colouring. When you have a wardrobe of clothing in your own personal colouring everything you put on will make you look healthy, vibrant, more youthful, it will even out your skin tone and make your eyes shine out. You will also find that everything goes together making it so much easier to put an outfit together.
When we go to the shops and try something on we generally look in the mirror and just check it fits in the right areas and doesn’t make our bum look big!! We get home, put it in our wardrobe and when we take it out it just doesn’t look as good as it did in the shops, why is that? What happens is that when you put that item on at home you look in a mirror that you are used to looking at your face in and if it’s the wrong colour it will not look so good on you, even if it does actually fit.
Step Three. Is it in your Style Personality
Step three is more about how our clothes make us feel as opposed to how they make us look. We all have an individual style personality. If you have a natural style personality and you have an item in your wardrobe that has frills, lace and flappy sleeves you will likely never wear this item. A romantic style personality on the other hand will love to wear this. If you are a classic and you have an item that you bought on a whim at a market on holiday then that will not make it to your everyday wear, a creative style personality on the other hand will love this item and wear it in all sorts of ways. How about if you have a beautiful cashmere neutral coloured jumper in your drawer, for a dramatic it will never have enough pizzazz for you to want to wear it, however it will be a perfect item for an elegant city chic style personality to add to their wardrobe.
The way to apply this to your wardrobe weed is to think about some words that you would like your clothes to make you feel, if they don’t make you feel that way, then it’s time to move it on.
In Summary
The best way to actually achieve this is to have 3 culls. Firstly, go through and take out everything that doesn’t fit. Secondly, look at each items colour and if it’s in your colour palette, if not then it needs to go. Thirdly hold up each item and see if they fit within the words/phrases that you have written down, if not then again it can go.
I know you will be left with a much smaller wardrobe but you will want to wear everything in there and it will actually open up more options as you can see exactly what you have in there.
The next steps
Once you have done this it’s probably time to call in a personal stylist to help you ‘shop your wardrobe’. With my clients I help them go through their wardrobe and put together outfits that they would never have thought of before, we will identify items that may need to be added to make it a more coherent and versatile wardrobe. I usually get told that my client has hardly any clothes to work with but by the time I leave they have many more outfits than they thought possible.
If you would be interested in finding out about colour, style/image consultations or wardrobe weeding/shop your wardrobe sessions then please do contact me!
I hope you have found this blog useful, I’d love to know your feedback and if there is anything you would like me to help you with.
